There are moments in life, when one feels fulfilled. As every other moment, it too is a fleeting moment – but the taste of those moment lingers on and they become valuable keys to tap when one feels down and needs that quintessential spark to restart.

Any kid who goes through the grill and is barbequed day and night feels fulfilled when the scorecard translates to achieving the aspired target. That moment of fulfilment came to Anoush with the declaration of the JEE Advanced results in 2025.

Let’s rewind and go back to where it all started!

Cellular Biologist, Molecular Scientist, Biogenetics… these were the fields Anoush started growing interested about from as early as grade 7. As time went by his aspirations to become a bio-scientist solidified.

In grade 9 we started looking for options and found that the best match was IISc Bangalore. In order to get into it there were three options – KVPY, JEE Mains and JEE Advanced. KVPY could be appeared for 3 times – once in grade 11, then in grade 12 and finally while in college 1^st year.

Now KVPY exam tested the candidates on all the four basic sciences, namely Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics. So it was decided that Anoush will take these four in grade 11/12; but in 2022 KVPY was discontinued.

Thus the focus had to be entirely on JEE!

Now JEE tests the candidates on 3 subjects, Physics Chemistry and Mathematics. It is much talked about in the academic circle for being one of the toughest exams in the world.

In 2025 2,51,673 students appeared for JEE Advanced and the pass percentage was 26.17%, and one of them was Anoush with a rank of 3268.

Now this was both good and bad in that funny way emotions work. I’ll explain – in JEE Mains that is the qualifying exam for JEE Advanced Anoush secured a rank of 607; his teachers were expecting him to secure a rank within 300 in the Advanced exam, so this was way below the collective expectation regarding Anoush’s rank – So the “Bad”… But as the D-day was approaching a big revelation happened – Anoush was not capable of handling a lot of Advanced level maths topics in the stipulated time period, which was hardly 2 to 3 mnts. For one he could not instinctively figure out the way to solve a problem and then he could not solve the arithmetic soon enough. Given the time, he could eventually get the solution, but not in a jiffy as was expected from a ‘within 300’ rank holder in one of the most demanding exams!

This fact started staring at us once he started practicing the JEE advanced previous year question papers. Every time Maths was bringing his scores down. By the time the D-day arrived we knew a lot would depend on the nature of the paper, certain topics he would breeze through but some would definitely pull down his score and eventually the rank – to what extent we were actually not sure at all! Thus the “Good” – as this rank was supposedly enough to secure a seat in IIT Madras for BS Biosciences, his ultimate goal!

Meanwhile IISc decided to drop intake from JEE Mains too, for 2025 they invited applications from JEE Advanced and IAT aspirants only.

IAT tests the candidates on all 4 subjects, Physics, Chemistry, Maths and Biology. Anoush as mentioned before had always been a Bio enthusiast and studied up on it as and when possible, but an exam was a different ball game altogether. So we searched high and low and found that “SciAstra” had courses tailor made for students who wish to appear for IAT but didn’t study Maths or Biology at their plus two school level. The courses helped Anoush catch up on the requisites of the exam and the question patterns.
He managed to secure an all India rank of 69! Sci Astra’s Vivek came home and did some Vid shoots – peep in!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/n5EiJuA5bXA
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Oc9yCBBhEFI

Alas! being a general category student this IAT rank too was not good enough for IISc. Their cut off rank from JEE advanced was 2200, and for IAT was 45.

It was an ‘aha’ moment undoubtedly and with his characteristic ‘move on’ attitude Anoush looked forward to life at IIT Madras – the numero uno institution for the 7^th consecutive year in the NIRF Rankings.

But Anoush could not have achieved this feat without the support of his constant companions, who kept on sleeping on dada’s behalf so that he could study! 

Thus began his college journey which would pleasantly surprise him and for once I would have to support his preparation lapses… as otherwise he wouldn’t be where he is today!